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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Philly by bike [day 2]

We woke up on Sunday primed for a day of pure laziness, and the first things on our agenda were coffee and food.

We left the lovely hostel and took a bike path south along the Schuykill River, where there was some sort of crewing event happening.

We made our way over to the charming Fishtown neighborhood, and stopped at a coffee shop for the first of many iced coffees of the day. It was already SO HOT out, maybe worse than Saturday. Like mid-August heat wave style. We settled on brunch at Cantina Dos Segundos, where we landed a large table right by the front window, and which had a nice selection of dishes for meat eaters and vegans alike. We also finally got the long-awaited beers that had eluded us the night before, and I think we were all pretty pleased with the day so far except that our meal was kind of overpriced.

The rest of the day was spent in and out of book stores, cafes, and other air conditioned spaces.

We also spent a good portion of time scouring the city for a vegan milk shake for me, which sadly, never materialized. Eventually though, we did end up at a sidewalk table at Govinda's for ice cream. Next time I'm in town I'd like to go back there to try their food, which looked tasty, but we were all still so full from our huge Mexican brunch.

And that was really all there was to the day. Food, bikes, iced coffee, bookstore browsing. An awesome way to go. We were also planning on paying a visit to Via Bicycle because Matthew has heard so many great things about them, but they're closed on Sundays. Their website awesomely evokes the era known as Web 1.0, which is probably an accurate representation of the reality of the brick and mortars shop--three or four floors of used bikes, vintage parts and accessories, and a proprietor with a handlebar mustache.

Our weekend adventure was drawing to a close, and now the only thing left was to get ourselves and all six of our bikes back to New York via Chinatown bus. Once the bus pulled up, we thought it would take endless finagling and begging, but we were very non-chalantly allowed to nestle all of the bikes in the ample luggage hold down below--Septa can kiss New Century's butt!